"Over the past decade, The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton-on-Hudson has quickly become a staple of the Halloween season in the Hudson Valley and surrounding areas. I had personally only heard whispers of it, before last year - when it quickly became obvious that I had seriously been missing out.

I tried to get tickets for it as soon as I realized the gravity of it, but that was no easy feat. It often sells out well in advance, and with good reason - it's unbelievable, in every way. It's probably unlike anything you've seen before. When I was able to get tickets for it, it was more than a week into November, but I was still set on seeing it.

I took a friend I hadn't spent time with in quite a while. We got to catch up a bit, and were both seriously impressed by the event they put on and the amount of work that goes into it, which is considerable, if not mind-boggling. If you get a chance to check it out, you'll probably be mind-boggled, too."

The Great Jack O'Lantern Blaze typically runs from early October, through Mid-November. For information, click here.

"Early Friday morning, I noticed something strange in the sky. At first it thought it was an odd-looking plane or two, and went to a website to see if there were any current aircraft in that part of the sky. There weren't, so I kept going on with my day. About 20 minutes later, I took a peek and noticed the pattern of lights were still there, which was a bit surreal. This time I used a sky map app to see what was in that part of the sky. It turned out what was I was seeing was Venus appearing incredibly bright, along with Jupiter and Mars, very close by, which I had never seen before. I told my Dad he had to see check it out, and he encouraged me I had to photograph it. Good call. I pointed my camera above the trees you see in the foreground, and got this shot of the three planets, in order of brightness."

"Pretty late last night, I found myself in Lagrange. The sky was especially nice, an inordinate amount of visible stars could be seen, along with wispy, low laying clouds here and there. I noticed this particular scene while driving, and pulled over by a field to get a shot of it with an incredibly wide-angle lens. Off in the distance you can see ground fog in front of a line of shrubs. The illumination seen on the clouds on the horizon I believe are from parking lot lights, or maybe aliens... here's hoping."

Credit: John Morzen Photography

"The blue moon made its appearance over the Hudson Valley on Friday, July 31st. A 'blue moon', by definition, could be the fourth full moon during a 3-month season, or the second full moon in any given month. Friday's was the latter definition, and the night was absolutely gorgeous - completely clear sky, warm breeze, and all.

A friend and I headed down to the Hudson River before midnight and spent some time talking, taking in the moonlit landscape and get some photos - this was one of them.

The term 'Once in a blue moon.' is an expression for something that doesn't happen often, and with good reason - the next blue moon won't be until January 31st, 2018. As for the next blue moon to appear during the summer? That won't be until August 31st, 2023. Let's hope it'll be another clear night!"

"Despite the mostly cool color palate of this image, this was actually taken on a particularly warm night. It was Monday evening, last week. I had been spending time a little further down  the river, when the moon over Storm King Mountain and clouds caught my attention while driving north. I headed back to the river and found myself taking in the scene you see here, around 9pm. The faint warm hues in the sky over Newburgh in the distance can be seen clearly - the last remnants of the day's fading sunlight."

"I took this shot the evening of August 5th, 2013, over Kerhonkson, New York. If you look carefully beyond the light cloud cover, you can faintly see the Galactic Plane of the Milky Way Galaxy extending diagonally across the upper right part of the photo.

This photo was taken the night after I realized it was possible to get really decent shots of the stars with the camera I was using. That night, all I wanted to do was get solid photos of the night sky - to do that, I only wanted two things... to be far away from light sources, and be closer to the stars. So, on somewhat of a whim, I decided to set out at night with the specific goal of night photography - which I don't think I had ever done before, let alone drive an hour each way to do so.

I had told my Dad what I was planning and he questioned whether it was a good idea to drive far away at night just to take pictures (especially providing it's only a hobby of mine), but I legitimized it in my mind that many of the photographers I admire travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles away for their photography.

As for the location of where this was taken, I don't know how much time I spent in that specific area - time sort of stopped - it was maybe 2 hours or more, in almost total darkness, but this was one of the scenes I captured.

When I took it, I was actually bummed to see the clouds impeding the view of the stars (not to mention the trees being slightly lit up by an oncoming cars headlights in the distance), but now I think they give the picture a lot more character."